Day 2 - 07:36; Northern CA United States:
This new, unique zombie, which Ty eventually calls, Brute, eats a huge chunk out of it, then throws the corpse of Austin off to the side, then reaches its sickeningly large arms down for a boulder that was near the edge of the waterfall. It easily rips the giant stone out of the ground and raises it above its head, as if it is going to attack my friends and I with it. In this position, the Brute is identified much easier. The Brute has a bald and greatly wounded head, glowing red eyes, like any other zombie, excessive facial hair, and a strange, reddish shine to its skin, caused by the virus infecting it. The particular zombie is also bare-naked, revealing the Brute to be a male. His body is enormous and muscular, almost like an infected bodybuilder on powerful steroids.
My friends and I dodge the boulder thrown by the Brute quickly. Now, we are cornered; in front of us is the Brute, and behind us is the waterfall. With seemingly nowhere to escape to, Ty turns to look around. He halts in his search when he seems to notice something inside the crater of which the waterfall dropped into. He peers harder into the blackness of the hole.
"There's no telling how deep this hole is, Ty. There's no point trying to make the jump," David doubts the idea before Ty even comes up with it.
"Well, we don't have time to find a way to climb down, and it's gotta be a hell of a lot better there than here with this guy!" Ty argues as he immediately jumps off the ledge, down the waterfall.
"Ty, no!" we all yell after him. After his jump, we never hear anything hit bottom. The Brute begins to creep in on us, closer and closer.
"Guys, it's okay! Just jump, you'll make it!" Ty suddenly calls out to us in an echo from the bottom of the pit. The Brute lunges at us, as we hesitate for a minute, in fear. Just before the Brute is ready to strike us down, we all jump off the ledge swiftly. Eventually, we all hit the earth at the bottom of the crater, and none of us are injured very badly.
"...Now what?" I shake off the pain and get to my feet. I peer up and can barely see the sky; the crater is obviously, incredibly cavernous. As I wonder how we even survived the jump, the ground beneath my feet begins to move. Within seconds, before we even have any chances to react, the earth under us crumbles completely, and we all fall even deeper into the crater.
"...What the junk?" I awake from passing out while falling and am now on a concrete floor.
"Where are we now?" Dwayne wonders as he examines the very new surroundings. We appear to be in the room of a building of some sort. Above us is a destroyed ceiling, from which we fell.
"Looks like we're in some kind of control room," David concludes, based on the technology and other objects in the chamber.
"Shit! Guys, the door's stuck!" Ty informs us while struggling to open the only door he can find in the room.
"So, we're stuck in here?" Kassandra becomes scared for her life, it seems.
"There has to be some way out of here, and we need to find it before that monster finds us," Kipp states the obvious.
"You're right about that. Let's all look around and try to find another way out of here," I agree and command. We all begin to search different areas of the room, even though we are not having any luck, at all. Just as we are starting to give up our hunt, Ty halts our search with a sudden discovery of his own.
"Guys, come here! Look what I found!"
"What is it? A way out?" Lou wonders with excitement.
"No, it's a camera."
We all go over to see what he is describing. At first sight, it gives off a familiar feeling to me. I tell Ty to quickly play the video that is displayed on the camera's screen, and so, he does.
"Hurry, it's coming!" the girl holding the camera can not be seen, but her voice can be heard, rushing someone. I immediately recognize the voice as my little sister, Melody's voice. We continue watching the video.
"It is? Oh my God, where's it at?!" The camera flashes an image of the girl being spoken to by Melody, for a brief second, and she is somewhat short, has round freckled cheeks, and has red hair.
"Don't worry about where it is, Allison, just run!" Another girl reveals the name of the first of Melody's friends. This girl runs by Melody and into the camera's view, showing her to also be somewhat short, and young, but slimmer, with medium length, dirty blond hair, and large eyes, even though she is American, and she has braces on her teeth. All the girls in this video are the last remaining friends we have yet to find.
"Jamie, slow down!" Melody calls out, revealing that girl to be Jamie. They stop running when they realize that another member of their group, Beverly is falling behind. They turn and witness Beverly, with her sweaty, short, black hair and bit of running makeup, get tripped by something. She is not able to crawl away because she is being dragged toward the shadows, where glowing red eyes are seen, as she screams for help the entire time.
"No, Beverly!" Melody begins to run to her rescue, with the camera showing it all, but suddenly, what appears to be a Brute picks up Beverly and rips her body in two, bathing in the girl's blood and guts. Melody turns away too quickly to witness the entirety of the horror, but enough was seen to make her lose her sanity, and she can be heard crying considerably over her friend.
"Melody, come on! There's a way out up there!" Jamie hurries Melody while stacking objects to climb to an air vent in the wall of what seems to be the same room in which we stand. Allison and Jamie quickly climb through the vent, but Melody has a hard time of doing the same.
"You're not gonna be able to climb with that thing in your hands!"
"But it's got all the videos of these zombies and stuff on it; I need it!"
"Melody quit being a brat, and just leave it!" Allison also yells at Melody.
"Ugh, fine!" The camera goes flying, and the second it hits the concrete floor, the last thing seen before the video cuts off is the Brute feasting off the corpse of Beverly. I read the time and date on the video, and it reads that it was filmed just a few hours before the current time.
"Melody, she was here not too long ago! Maybe we can catch up to her and the others!"
"Do you think that was the same monster that attacked us out there?" Dwayne wonders.
"Maybe. But for now, let's find that vent that they used in the video and get out of here," David suggests. We look around and soon spot the vent and stacked up objects that the video showed Melody and the other girls using. We all begin climbing to and through the air vent, one by one. We crawl through the air duct until we reach a new and much larger room. We all climb out and check it out. Ty walks up and feels on a massive machine that stretches out the entire length of the chamber and has pipes attached to the walls, reaching to the top of the room.
"What is this thing?"
"It looks like generators," David informs him, with his own opinion.
"Jeez, what would need this much power?"
"Let's keep looking and find out."
"Uh, guys we have a problem," Cheyenne informs the others. We all turn to see the same thing as Cheyenne; the Brute is standing before us again.
"Oh, shit," Lou is petrified.
"Okay... No running, this time, guys. We have to stand and fight this thing sometime, so let's just go ahead and get it over with," I decide.
"Dude, we don't stand a chance against that thing!"
"We won't know till we try," I begin to take on the stance of my tae kwon do to attack the Brute. He turns his head at me in confusion. Just as I start to go for him, he lunges at me first and much faster. He delivers a quick strike to my gut. Then he picks me up by my neck and attempts to eat me, while Dwayne tries to shoot the Brute's head with his pistol, to stop him. The bullets would not penetrate, so the Brute continues his attempt, but the Brute is suddenly smashed in the head by Kipp and his wrench. He drops me and begins to attack Kipp, but I quickly kick the Brute in the side, knocking him away. Lou prepares both the knife he already had and the one he recovered from Austin and runs after the Brute. The Brute is much too fast, however; he rises and swipes Lou away. Lou goes soaring off, into the generators with a significant effect. Next to Lou's body are hanging wire cords that are live with electricity. Lou notices them, and his face lights up with ideas.
"Ben, use this wire! If we can't beat him to death or shoot him, we'll just electrocute his brain!" Lou shares his brilliant idea. I quickly run to him and grab the cord. With the cord in hand, I run, extending the cable far, until I come up behind the Brute and touch the hot wires to his head. It shocks his entire body, until the zombie falls to the floor, motionless. We all stand there, looking at the Brute's corpse, trying to catch our breath. The situation had become so intense that we have not even felt relieved yet.
"Now, what?" Lou is open to suggestions on what the group does next.
"We needa find a way out or at least figure out where we are," Dwayne states the first step.
"Already on it. See? Check this out, guys," David calls us into a small room he had already found while examining our environment. As we walk in, he continues, "It might not be a way out, but it just might tell us where we are." The room has millions of buttons and flashing lights and technical things; it is a master control room, by the looks. It has monitors, but none were working, besides one that displayed a camera view in some tunnel nearby.
"I wonder where that tunnel is. That might be an exit for us," I suggest a possibility.
"More importantly, notice the power is actually working here."
"Look, I found a map!" Maria informs us with excitement.
"And it shows that there's an exit, right around the corner of this room! Nice!" Cheyenne joins Maria, apparently attempting to charm her.
"Looks like there's a digital map to monitor movement too," before we can react to Maria and Cheyenne finding our way out, David is playing with computers and finding more useful tools. "I fixed these cameras too. Now, we can see what's in these tunnels." The minute the monitors are viewable, we all gasp at the visual one of the cameras is showing.
"Whoa, are those subway trains?" I am flabbergasted at the sight of five tunnels with tracks leading down them and several of them having metro subway trains resting on them.
"So, we're in some kind of underground railway, huh?" Kipp realizes.
"Looks like it. And notice, there's one train missing," David points out.
"You think the girls took it earlier?" Kassandra wonders what appears to be the case.
"Probably, and if so, that means we could easily get one working and usable."
"Awesome, dude! Let's get it done, then."
"Just one problem, Ben."
"Oh, gosh...what, David?"
"Someone has to run it from here to leave. This is the master control room, after all."
"Crap, how is this going to work then?"
"I may be able to make a run for it."
"But if not, you'll get left behind, and I can't let that happen, David."
"Don't worry. Most of you just go ahead and find the trains, and the rest stay here with me for protection, please. And don't worry, we all will make it in time to get on, I'll make sure of it."
"If you say so, dude... Okay, who's coming with me?"
"I'll go with ya, dude," Ty answers first.
"I'll go since I know where the exit is!" Cheyenne states proudly.
"That won't be a problem. I can guide you all through the tunnels with these microphones," David takes away her throne.
"Oh... Well, I'll still go with you, Ben."
"I'm going too, Ben," Kassandra let me know.
"I'm staying with David!" Kelly makes herself very clear while giving me a mean look.
"Guess I'm staying too, then," Kipp follows Kelly, making me somewhat jealously irritated, yet again.
"Me and Maria will stay here too," Lou answers for himself and Maria.
"I'll stay here and cover for David. I'll come back ya up, though, if you need it," Dwayne reassures me.
"Okay, it's settled. Get going, Ben."
"All right. Ty, Cheyenne, Kassandra; let's go."
"Right," they all say in unison.
Cheyenne runs ahead, showing us to the exit with excitement and wonder. She waits for us next to its door, then we all leave the room and go into a new tunnel. Ty and I quickly pull out flashlights, given to us by David from the master control room, to penetrate the pitch black of the tunnel.
"Stay close, girls. There could be more zombies here," I command.
"Yeah, like another Brute. I hate that thing," Ty adds.
"What's a 'Brute?'" Kassandra questions him.
"That fucking huge zombie we killed earlier. You know how in zombie games there's always those special ones that have names? Well, I called the one David and Ben killed the Banshee, 'cause it screamed, I called the ones with long arms and fingers and stuff, the Reachers, and I decided to call him the Brute. Pretty clever, huh?"
"How about we not talk about that stupid thing? I think I'd be happier not thinking there's another one of those out there somewhere..." I interrupt them.
"True, true. Sorry about that, haha!"
"Besides, Banshee was my idea. Not yours."
The two girls each walk close behind us admiring us, looking at each other and giggling.
"What?" Ty hears them at the same time as me.
"What's so funny?" I ask them.
"Oh, nothing. Just keep us safe, hehe," Cheyenne replies, kicking me in the butt with a tap, making me jump a bit.
Ty and I, while protecting the girls, walk down the tunnel, guided by David's voice through the intercom, and check every corner and every crevice with our flashlights. Eventually, we make our way to a huge room where the one tunnel we stand in branches off to five others. Each of the five shafts has railways leading down them, along with a subway train, besides the one tunnel missing a train that we presumed Melody took.
"Okay, Ben, only one of the trains is functional. That train would be the one dead ahead of you," David informs me over the intercom, his voice echoing through the vast, ruined room.
"Thanks, David! We'll go check it out."
"Dude, I don't think you can talk back to him...," Ty laughs at me.
"Oh...well anyway, let's go check it out."
We pry one of the doors open on the train. It seems empty, but I quickly notice a few zombies lurking about the train that have not noticed us yet. I tell Ty that we need to take them out quick so David could start the train. Ty and I quickly and discreetly take out all the zombies we find on the train. I walk out and hold up a thumbs up to the cameras to signal to David that it is safe.
The train we were on suddenly begins running.
"It worked!" I rejoice.
"All right! That's my nigga!" Ty exclaims one of his popular titles for his friends.
While waiting a few minutes for our friends to get to the train, the train shakes somewhat violently, causing most of us to lose our balance nearly. With that, the train begins moving. David and the others can be seen running for us, but they are still a good distance away.
"Hurry! The train's already moving!" I yell as they one by one jump on the train. Kelly is the last in line and is getting further and further away, about to miss her ride. My adrenaline is going hard.
"Hurry up, and take my hand!" I yell out to Kelly as I lean out of the train as far as I can, reaching my hand out to grab her. Her hand comes close to my grasp once but slips away. She begins catching back up in pace and trying again. I strain my arm, trying to reach even farther out; my arm starts to shake. Our fingers and hands reach for each other several different ways, until I finally have a good grip on her hand, and I sling my arm back, pulling her in, with all my strength. I fall in with her, on the floor, out of breath. She looks at me, also out of breath, but quickly snatches her hand away from me and gets up from the floor and walks away, with a grunt.
"You're welcome!" I also grunt, in irritation of her stubbornness. I get up from the floor and sweep myself off. The train has begun to gain speed, so I close up the door. Everyone is sitting or laying in seats, taking a long and much-deserved break.
"Get some rest, guys. We've got a long ride ahead of us, and we need the rest. I'll look for some food and water for us," David relieves everyone.
"So, where we headed, David?" Dwayne appears before David.
"Yeah, do you know?" I also walk up, wondering the same thing as Dwayne.
"Yeah, I know where we're going. Each train is set to go to a different place. If the missing train was taken by Melody and her friends, then they're on the way to Dallas, Texas."
"Damn, that's pretty far away..."
"Then where's this one going?"
"This train's destination is Denver, Colorado."